4.29.2014

after a brief hiatus, i got back to working (and made some progress) on the highlighter quilt.

this round took me a bit of time, to the point where i am a little tired of looking at it. so instead of putting it away, i moved it to the side while i think about what i want to do for the next round.

in the meantime, this weekend i pulled out an old w.i.p., and when i say old...i mean embarrassingly old. as in started this one more than two years ago, old? ugh. it started with panier de fleurs, by french general and with the release of le bouquet francais i've been inspired to pick it back up. the original concept for this quilt was "patriotic picnic". i've changed the design a bit but kept to the concept of squares only.

added this one to the pile initially because i ran out of fabric after cutting all the large outside squares...i did make a quick jaunt one weekend to the French General shop, where i was lucky enough to find the same prints i needed. when i got home with the extra yardage, i just put it on the shelf with the quilt top and there it sat ever since!

in the meantime, i have started coordinating my floral arrangements to my craft projects.

3.19.2014

i've been sewing a little here and there still with no clear path to a finished design in mind, i do know that the two main elements to this project are 'medallion' style quilt and the three highlighter marker colors: blue, purple and pink.

a friend pointed out that there is definitely a love theme going on
here. i didn't intend there to be..but now i've got Sade stuck in my head.

foxfield should arrive any day now, i am anxiously awaiting their
arrival while trying to think about what the next round wants to be. that's my excuse anyway for letting this one settle in a bit.

3.09.2014

a while back I found inspiration for a color scheme in a drawing done entirely with purple, blue and pink highlighters. since then, I have been collecting fabrics from Tula Pink and Anna Maria Horner as well as a couple of solid stacks from Pink Chalk fabrics.

I finally decided to cut into them and start on something. at this point, I have a loose concept for a quilt design but I haven't drawn anything out so this may change.

I fell in love with a mini quilt made from a cross stitch block that I saw on pinterest, and later found the tutorial on the Pile O' Fabric blog.

2.23.2014

after having these pillow tops lying around for a couple of weeks, I finally got off my rear-end and finished them up (thanks to the encouragement from fellow members of Men Who Quilt). I actually had one more planned that I wanted to get done before tackling the zippered-backs, but for some reason just couldn't get it started. I guess I didn't have it fully figured out in my mind.

now I can start a new project knowing I at least finished SOMETHING from my pile of UFOs!﻿

2.08.2014

this weekend I really should start working on creating and adding zippered pillow backs before the pillow fronts start to pile up. yesterday I finished #4:

#3 is ready to go:

﻿

and #2 is assembled:

in the meantime, I have my TV watching project (read into that watching the Olympics) with the Seamless Hybrid I started on Christmas day. I still haven't finished the Urban Aran Cardigan, all that's left is adding the zipper. the two zippers I bought for it were wrong..one is not a separating zipper and both are too long, so I need to go back and get a shorter size.

1.27.2014

apparently Saturday was "visit your local quilt shop" day. once I got wind of the news, I had to make a stop (and an excuse) to buy some fabric to make something "valentine's-y". I didn't find anything in the shop that appealed to me for a v-day theme so instead of leaving what do I end up picking up instead?

a couple of stash builders, and of course a few orange cuts because...you can never have enough orange? ok, I admit I have collected greys, blacks and oranges over the years with the intention of eventually making an orange black quilt. since I started this collection, my taste (and concept) for the orange & black quilt have changed. I started amassing reproduction fabrics in this color scheme which I am much more excited about and these more modern prints have just sat in my stash.

so for some reason, I have been obsessed with trying to sew a zipper into something. It really makes no sense to me since what I really need to do is install a zipper in that urban aran cardigan that I finished seaming last week..i guess I am concerned with installing a zipper into knitting which seems more challenging. but I digress. because of this obsession, I stopped into joann's after the quilt shop to look at zippers, and a lightbulb went off...why don't I make a pillow with a zipper closure? perfect.

﻿

I walk into joann's and was easily distracted by the fabric sale going on..thinking I would look at the latest DS Quilts line and the next thing I know I have stacks of bolts of fabric in my cart. I whittled them down, basically eliminated the floral themes and walked out with these:

I was very excited to find a whole range of orange and black in the DS Quilt line and the concept for my current project was born: a series of throw pillows in orange and black.

this is based on the barn bats block tutorial by Elizabeth Hartman. I have a couple more to sew together for this series, I know I definitely have time before Halloween to get them done, but my goal is still Valentine's Day!

1.13.2014

this was a good one to start the year with because i was guaranteed to get it done quickly - sort of like cheating, but not.

considering how many starts i made last year that are now in the closet as a finished quilt top waiting for basting (x2), unfinished quilt top (x2), quilt in progress - blocks made but not assembled (x3), project planned but not started - fabric purchased (x3), not to mention a seamless hybrid i started on christmas eve, the unfinished knitted items i pulled out to force me to get done (as if sitting in the living room cluttering up space is going to make me work on them!) i needed something to be completed.